Main Data
Author: Philip Carl Salzman
Title: Universities Today
Publisher: BookBaby
ISBN/ISSN: 9781999271015
Edition: 1
Price: CHF 11.30
Publication date: 01/01/2020
Category: Pädagogik
Language: English
Technical Data
Pages: 200
Kopierschutz: kein Kopierschutz
Geräte: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
Formate: ePUB
Table of contents
Western Universities have been major contributors to our civilization and others through scientific discovery and humanistic scholarship. Knowledge both old and new has been expanded, enriched, and diffused. Universities have also been an important channel of upward social and economic mobility through academic achievement, thus reinforcing the vision of America as a land of opportunity. But since the 1980s, universities have increasingly turned away from producing and disseminating knowledge and taken up as their objective neo-marxist radical social reform, often labelled 'social justice.' Today universities focus on political propaganda and activism, and are increasingly like closed religious cults. America and Western civilization are portrayed as imperialistic, racist, and oppressive, with no redeeming features. In their own functioning, universities' much vaunted 'diversity and inclusion' means favoring preferred genders and races, and excluding others. But diversity of opinion is no where to be seen, as views other than 'social justice' are precluded or silenced. Universities have been entirely corrupted by leftist politics, and have contributed massively to the similar corruption of primary and secondary schooling, the civil service, and our legislatures and public officials.
Table of contents
> Chapter One: What Your Sons and Daughters Will Learn at University   Universities in the 20th century were dedicated to the advancement of knowledge. Scholarship and research were pursued, and diverse opinions were exchanged and argued in the marketplace of ideas. This is no longer the case. Particularly in the social sciences, humanities, education, social work, and law, a single political ideology has replaced scholarship and research, because the ideology presents fixed answers to all questions. And, although the most important thing in universities today is the diversity of race, gender, sexual practice, ethnicity, economic class, and physical and mental capability, there is no longer diversity of opinion. Only those committed to the ideology are admitted to academic staff or administration. Universities have been transformed by the near-universal adoption of three interrelated theories: postmodernism, postcolonialism, and social justice. These theories and their implications will be explored here. There Is No Truth; Nothing Is Good or Bad Postmodernism : In the past, academics were trained to seek truth. Today, academics deny that there is such a thing as objective Truth. Instead, they argue that no one can be objective, that everyone is inevitably subjective, and consequently everyone has their own truth. The correct point of view, they urge, is relativism. This means not only that truth is relative to the subjectivity of each individual, but also that ethics and morality are relative to the individual and the culture, so there is no such thing as Good and Evil, or even  Right and Wrong . So too with the  ways of knowing ; your children will learn that there is no objective basis for preferring chemistry over alchemy, astronomy over astrology, or medical doctors over witch doctors. They will learn that facts do not exist; only interpretations do. All Cultures Are Equally Good; Diversity Is Our Strength Our social understanding has also been transformed by postmodern relativism. Because moral and ethical principles are deemed to be no more than the collective subjectivity of our culture, it is now regarded as inappropriate to judge the principles and actions of other cultures. This doctrine is called  cultural relativism . For example, while racism is held to be the highest sin in the West, and slavery the greatest of our historical sins, your children will learn that we are not allowed to criticize contemporary racism and slavery in Africa, the Middle East, and the equivalents in South Asia. The political manifestation of cultural relativism is  multiculturalism , an incoherent concept that projects the integration of multiple incompatible cultures.  Diversity  is lauded as a  virtue in itself .  Imagine a country with fifty different languages, each derived from a different culture. That would not be a society, but a tower of babble. How would it work if there were multiple codes of law requiring and forbidding contrary behaviors: driving on the left and driving on the right; monogamy and polygamy; male dominance and gender equality; arranged marriage and individual choice? Your children will learn that our culture is nothing special and that other cultures are awesome. The West Is Evil; The Rest Are Virtuous Postcolonialism , the dominant theory in the social sciences today, is inspired by the  Marxist-Leninist theory of imperialism , in which the conflict between the capitalist and proletariat classes is allegedly exported to the exploitation of colonized countries. By this means, the theory goes, oppression and poverty t